


Pain of Death

by LittleSweetCheeks



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Gen, Lots of Murder, Murdery, Revenge, Tissue Warning, Unhinged Jack, Unsub! Jack, major character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 11:29:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15023603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSweetCheeks/pseuds/LittleSweetCheeks
Summary: Jack can't help it, they destroyed his family.





	Pain of Death

**Author's Note:**

> This follows fifteen years after my story Injustice Collector.

Jack stared at the blank wall over the bathroom sink as he got ready, he hadn’t used a mirror in years. There wasn’t a single mirror in his entire apartment, he didn’t need them, he could close his eyes and see in his memories that he looked exactly like his dad, just a bit blonder.

It had been a decade and a half since that day- the day he watched his father be murdered in cold blood by the very person, people, who swore to always make sure his dad came home to him. He could still feel the warmth of blood being wiped on his skin, the splatter of blood as the bullets flow, hear his father’s moans and cries as he suffered.

Flipping off the light, he headed to the kitchen to pack his bag. It was routine and had been since his time living at the hospital. Jessica had tried her hardest after the funeral to give her only nephew a normal life, but nightmares plagued him constantly, even into the waking hours, paranoia and anxiety made it difficult to be out. In the end, she’d allowed the doctors to suggest he was better off being housed with full-time care until he reached adulthood. Six years he lived in the hospital.

==

Nervously, Jessica climbed the stairs to Jack’s place. After his time in the hospital, he’d been moved to a special group home for young men like him and there he’d remained until he turned twenty-five. The staff had made sure he’d stayed on his medicine, had helped him enroll in community college to get started on credits, and had allowed him to learn to be comfortable living out in society. They’d assured her over and over that he was doing well, that Jack would eventually become an independent man.

Jessica wasn’t so sure, though she couldn’t put a finger on why not. Maybe it was the thousand-yard stare he would get, just like his father, holding in everything, every emotion. Maybe it was the familiar jaw twitch from clenched teeth, the one that often went with clenched fists before both vanished completely moments later. Or maybe, and she wasn’t sure she wasn’t just imagining this, maybe it was the way he whispered to himself under his breath when he thought no one was listening, muttering hatred for the people who betrayed him.

Whatever the reason, Jessica fully intended to hold up her promises to Haley and to Aaron to always care for Jack as if he were her own. No matter the cost. She just had no way of knowing just how big that cost would eventually be.

==

Jack had agreed to escort his aunt to lunch, part of his requirement for living on his own now was getting out and doing normal things, normal things like joining your aunt to meet up with someone you wished was dead.

“Oh, Jack!” The older woman smiled brightly, pulling him stiffly against her chest. “It’s so good to see you sweetie, Henry asks how you’re doing sometimes.”

Jack didn’t speak as he sat across from JJ.

Jessica patted his arm. “He needed to get out, I knew he’d love to see you.” The two women carried on chatting through the meal as if Jack wasn’t with them, occasionally looking his way or petting an arm.

Jack did his best to hold tight to the building fury he felt. How could this woman who let his parents die, let him become an orphan, simply sit here and eat like nothing was wrong? As the meal finished, Jack performed some slight of hand and stole a steak knife from the table, hiding it in his shirt. Looking up innocently, he gave JJ his most innocent look. “If- if you’re not too busy, maybe you and I could walk a bit and catch up?”

JJ glanced to Jessica, who nodded, before nodding to Jack. “Sure, Sweetie.”

He played the role well, holding the door open for her, carefully leading her down the sidewalk, walking closest to the road. Manners were important, he knew they’d been important to his dad and he knew that anyone who remembered would expect him to be impeccable. Jack knew where all the cameras were on this street and casually led the older woman through an alley that would bring them out into a private park area. “You were close to my dad.”

JJ looked up at him in surprise. “Of course, Hon.”

“You were there the day my mom died. I remember him sending me away with you.”

JJ took his arm. “It was the least I could do, you were such a little boy.”

“You were there the day Spencer shot my dad.”

Something uncomfortable shivered through her. “Yes.”

His grip on her hand on his arm tightened. “You let Spence kill my dad.”

“No, Sweetie….”

“You let them both die.” He cut off.

JJ tried to pull back, but her hand was caught. “Jack?”

Jack turned, pushing her against the brick wall. “You were there when they died, you knew what sort of hell they suffered through. I remember staring every day at the scars on my dad’s body, the way he would pull away when I touched them.” He leaned in. “Did you ever see them?”

“N-no.” The look in his eye made her swallow.

“I’ll show you.”

==

JJ trembled in the cold room. The mattress she was laying on was wet with trails of her own blood, thankfully she was still dressed. Jack hadn’t seemed to desire seeing her naked. She was gagged, however, and the pain of being slowly cut in all the places she’d known her former friend had been stabbed had been excruciating.

Jack had talked, rambling about how his earliest memories were of his dad not being there, or leaving him behind. He had talked about the man who had come sometimes to stay with him and his mom while his dad had been away. JJ wondered if Hotch had even known his wife had been having an affair all those years ago.

The door to the warehouse banged open and JJ twisted to see Jack making his way back toward her.

“Ready to finish?” The dangerous look on his face made JJ’s heart clench, he looked so much like his father. She shook her head.

“I wasn’t ready to lose my father. I wasn’t ready to watch him strung out in drugs!” He shouted as he carried on. “Spencer swore he would always take care of me! He swore you were the sister he’d never had; did you know that?” He waited until she nodded. “But you fucked him over as well, now didn’t you? You left him to rot, time and again. Some sister.” From the back of his belt, he drew a gun, a revolver. “I heard this story once, I wasn’t supposed to be awake, but I snuck down the staircase. Dad never wanted to admit he was mostly deaf on one side, did you know that?” He arched a brow at her.

It wasn’t a thought that surprised her, but she had to shake her head.

“Some profiler.” He spun the barrel and snapped it shut. “You got to hang out, nice and safe, as Spence stared down a gun like this one.” He aimed it at her face. “He had to choose him own life or the lives of one of you lot. He played the odds, risked himself to protect all of you.” He pulled the trigger and JJ flinched when the gun clicked. Jack tipped his head. “I wonder how much luck you will have?” He pulled the trigger again, blood spattered everywhere as he watched her body go still. “I guess it ran out.”

==

Jessica finished drying off as she stepped back into the bedroom, the TV on playing the news.

“…The victim is now known to be Jennifer Jareau, a Virginia resident and Justice Department employee. Sources working the case described the condition the victim was in as worrying. No further information has been released in this case as it is ongoing.”

She was frozen in place, an older photo of the woman she’d had lunch with only a few days earlier appeared on the screen. It wasn’t until someone knocked on her door that she was spurred into action once again. Throwing on sweats, she opened the door. “Dave.” The older man had two men in suits behind him.

“Jessica.” He nodded slightly. “May we come in?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” She stepped back, letting them in. “Is this about JJ?” When the older man arched a brow at her, she waved to the bedroom. “I have the TV on in the bedroom, I just saw it on the news. She’s really dead?”

“I was with Will when he made the ID. When was the last time you saw her?”

Jess glanced at the other two men. “Am, Am I a suspect?”

“We’re just trying to follow her final steps right now.” He waited.

“She and I had lunch.” She swallowed, remembering that Jack had joined them. “We went to a new place.”

“Did the two of you go anywhere together after that?”

“No.”

Dave watched as her eyes dropped to her lap. “Jessica?” He softened his voice, shifting closer to her. “Is there anything else?”

“Uh, she was going to go for a walk around the area afterward, but I don’t know where she went. She was supposed to call me about going shopping, but I never heard from her.”

He studied her a moment before turning to the other two agents, nodding to them to silently give him a minute. He didn’t speak again until they were both outside. “Jess.” He switched seats now, taking her clasped hands in his. “They’re gone, this is off the record.”

“The FBI is looking into it.” She stated.

“Yeah.”

“The news said there was something about her injuries.”

He sighed. “JJ was cut, sliced but shallowly. Each cut was then cut again the ME said. It would have been painful, but it wouldn’t have killed her.”

“How…how many?”

Dave knew what she was asking but didn’t think it was information she needed. “It doesn’t matter.”

Her eyes met his, dark with irritation. “How did she die?”

“A single shot to the forehead from a revolver based on the markings on the bullet recovered. There was residue on her skin, so she was shot at point blank range.”

Jess was confused by that. “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t think of anything else that would be helpful.”

He studied her a moment before squeezing her hand and rising. “How is Jack these days?”

She sniffled. “As good as can be expected I guess. He still rarely talks and that stare…”

“The kid’s been through more hell in his short life than anyone should have to suffer through in a hundred lifetimes.”

==

Jack curled into himself as the mourners chatted around him. His aunt had dragged him along to pay his respects to JJ’s family and the team, to connect with all of them. He’d noticed that she had very specifically not asked about his walk with JJ or anything since they had left lunch that day. He knew that meant she suspected, he would have to make sure she never talked.

As the team started to leave, agreeing to meet later for dinner at a restaurant, Jack innocently asked for Jess to come with him to the side of the building, he knew no one would be able to see them. Once he knew they were well out of view, he whipped around, slamming her into the wall.

“Jack!” She cried out before he clamped a hand over her mouth. The look in his eyes scared her. Something sharp pressed into her side.

“If you ever tell anyone I was with JJ, if you even hint at it, I will kill you. You got me?” When she only whimpered, he pressed the tip of the blade harder. “You got me!”

Jess nodded.

“She left them out in the cold, she let them die. She had to pay. If you tell anyone, you’ll pay too.” He loosened his grip.

“Jack…” She started, softer.

He held a knife up, she could see dried blood on it. “I even have a souvenir. The blood of the person who let me become an orphan.”

==

Dave frowned against his glass, something was off. Jessica Brooks had been upset the day he’d gone to her place, distressed over learning her friend had been murdered shortly after they’d had lunch, that was understandable. And during the funeral and reception the woman had been teary and emotional in ways that were difficult to fake without some serious pathology to back it up. Pathology he just couldn’t peg her as having. But now. They were all gathered to eat Jack still at Jessica’s side, and the woman looked worried, nervous. Through the entire meal she hadn’t met a single person’s eye.

Something was up.

==

“Call her!”

“No!” She cried. “Please, no! Don’t get me involved, Jack.” When he rushed across the room in only a few strides, she cowered in fear, bringing her hands up to protect herself. When hands grabbed and twisted her wrists, she cried out in pain.

“Call her!” Jack bellowed, shoving her to the floor. “Call or I use you instead!”

Jess gasped, panicked. “What are you going to do?”

With a sharp crack, he jerked her wrist back, breaking it. While she was gasping in pain, he drew his knife and pressed it against her shirt. “I’m going to split her from top to bottom. Unless you want to take her place?”

“I’ll call!” She cried.

==

Penelope frowned at the address Jessica had given her. It seemed an odd sort of place to meet up, but she figured that maybe ever since JJ’s funeral the other woman was also having a hard time being out and about.

She’d nearly cried anew when she’d spotted Jack, looking so much like his father now in a fitted suit and dark tie. The young man had been silent the entire day and Penelope had wondered how he was really doing now, with the memory of his father’s death so far in the past.

Pulling open the door to the vacant storefront with paper covered windows, she called out. “Jessica? It’s Penny.”

From the back came the other woman’s voice. “Lock the door and come to the back!”

Garcia did as requested, stepping into the back room, getting her first look at Jessica. “Oh my god!” She cried out, rushing to the woman before being grabbed. “Let me go!” She fought the attacker, determined to come to her friend’s aid. A searing pain in her side made her stop.

“I promise not to hurt her more if you cooperate.”

Garcia didn’t need to see to know that voice; it was almost a perfect match to a voice she’d listened to for years. At one time she’d heard that voice in what she had thought was all its moods, happy and sad, menacing and aggressive, but this…this voice terrified her. “Okay.” She yelped as she was shoved onto a hard mat on the floor similar to a yoga mat. It wasn’t soft or really meant for laying on. “Please don’t kill us.” She whispered, staring up into Jack’s eyes.

“If you’re good… I won’t kill her.” With that, he drew back and kicked her head as hard as he could.

==

The pain radiating through Jessica’s arm made her feel ill. Jack hadn’t allowed her to be seen by a doctor for the break and she was worried it wasn’t going to heal properly. Garcia was unconscious still on the floor in front of her, the younger woman now tied, and her shirt cut away. Jess could remember over the years, the odd bits and pieces she put together about the cases Aaron had worked, the reasons people did bad things, the horrors people would commit against one another and she worried about just how far Jack would take this. He’d already killed JJ, what else was he planning to do?

The sound of flesh meeting flesh and a groan brought Jessica’ attention back to the room. Jack was on one knee, punching the woman on the floor. It was a sickening sound as he carried on.

“Stop!” Jess cried out. “Please stop!”

Jack sat up straight and eyes her. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s… the sound is…”

He sneered. “Can’t handle the sound of flesh on flesh? Of a body giving way? You should have been in the house that day, I could hear the fighting, the beating.” He stood and gave Garcia a kick before leaning over the other woman. “I have a better treat for her anyway.” Jack pulled a knife from the shelf behind her before turning back to a now more alert Garcia. “You’ll want to be awake for this.” He sliced her arm, grinning as she screamed. “Just getting started.”

Jessica watched in horror as Jack mad two more cuts before kneeling straddling Penelope’s thighs. Carefully, she watched as Jack pressed the blade into the soft flesh of the other woman’s neck before slowly dragging it down her body until there was a thick line of blood from throat to top of her panties. It was horrifying. But then Jack did something she couldn’t fathom any sane person doing. As Garcia wept beneath him, he carefully pressed the knife into her abdomen again, this time just a bit harder, dragging it down her stomach until he’s cut her open, the sight of it all made Jessica pitch forward as much as she could and vomit on the concrete floor.

==

Dave followed the two agents through the shop, they had asked him to come out again, told him the scene was horrific. When he’d pressed, they said it was worse than last time, the victim was yet to be ID’d. Through the doorway, Dave could see blood and tissue on the floor, a body left bruised and mutilated. His chest clenched. “I can ID her.”

The agents turned. “You sure? There’s not a lot to go on here.”

He nodded. “Her name is Penelope Garcia, she used to be an FBI analyst.”

“Another Feeb murdered?” They two younger men shared a look. “Any connection to the first victim?”

Dave had to look away. “They worked on the same team.”

“Your team?”

“The team that had to kill one of their own?” The second man finally spoke.

“I don’t get it though, she would be an innocent. She never went into the field.”

“Well, seems someone didn’t agree with that assessment.” He looked from the body to the retired agent. “Any suggestions?”

“I think we need to speak to Jessica again.”

==

Dave felt himself twitch as he studied the woman across from him. She’d clearly been beaten and looked to be nursing a broken wrist. “Are you okay, Jess?”

“I’m fine, Dave.” She couldn’t meet his gaze. “We’re you just stopping by to check on me?”

He knew she knew. “It’s about Penelope.”

“Garcia?”

He nodded. “They found her body this morning.”

“Oh.”

“The FBI pulled her phone records and her last messages were with you arranging to meet where she was found. Did you ask her to go there?”

“Uhh…yeah.”

“Under duress?”

She remained silent.

“Jess… I can help you.” He reached out to touch her, but she pulled away.

“Am I a suspect?”

He sat upright. “No. Right now you are a person of interest, but there isn’t quite enough to bring you in.” Dave frowned at her. “Aaron…” He saw her flinch at the name. “He was my best friend for years… He was a big believer in family first, even if Haley never thought he was… But it’s also your duty to protect society, to speak up…” He cut off when she lurched to her feet, anger now in her eyes.

“Duty?! You want to talk to me about duty? Duty killed Aaron! Little by little, that duty chipped away at him until it swallowed him whole. My only duty is to the family I have left.” She moved to the door. “Now, please leave, Agent Rossi.”

With a nod, Dave stopped out as the door slammed shut behind him. Yeah, she was protecting Jack. Now he just had to prove it.

==

Jack paced his apartment, waiting. It had felt good, cathartic, to cut and cut into JJ and make her bleed to the pain she helped cause to his family. But the feeling had only lasted so long and while tormenting Jess helped make it last, he’d needed her to lure Penny to that empty store.

Her loyalty to raising him the way his parents would have wanted made her perfectly vulnerable.

But now it had been a week and the pleasure of the last kill, of watching Penny bleed out from the massive wound in her gut, was wearing off and now he was just angry.

Pacing to the far wall again, Jack drew back and punched it, staring at his hand as blood sprang up on his knuckles in detachment. He knew it should hurt, but it didn’t. It made him wonder, did other people really feel pain or did they just react as if they were in pain because society taught them to.

Staring out the window, Jack thought of the toughest guy he knew. Did a tough guy like Derek Morgan really feel pain?

==

It’d been a trap; one Derek had never seen coming even with all his law enforcement experience and training. Because who is suspicious of a woman like Jessica Brooks calling to ask for help moving a couch out of the basement and who would ever think that the son of a man like Hotch would ever be capable of something so horrendous. But here he was. Drugged into submission, curled on the floor, being beaten by the blonde doppelganger of a dear friend.

When the caning started, Morgan couldn’t hold back anymore. It hurt.

“Spencer always scratched at those spots on his arm, the ones that were there because you failed!” Jack brought the cane down again. “And you knew what was happening that day when my father was left to defend me all on his own. You abandoned him!” Thwack! “His hands afterward always seemed to hurt him a bit, subconsciously I think. Like they were remembering.” Thwack! “Now you’ll remember too!”

“Please! Stop! I’m sorry!”

“Too late.” Thwack!

Derek rolled on the floor, a shadow by the stairs catching his eye. “Jess!”

“Don’t call for her! She’s no good!” Jack stormed across the open space and grabbed her, throwing her down and landing the cane across her hands as well. “She’s weak.”

“She’s not weak!” Derek tried to distract him. “She’s strong! She stepped in when your mother died! She did so much for you and your dad!”

“JJ was so pretty wearing the same scars as Dad, I cut them careful, no jagged stabs like his. No raping her so she was left screaming in her nightmares for the rest of her life too.”

“Good.”

“Good?!”

“You knew raping JJ was wrong, that’s good.”

Thwack!

“Jack!” Jess cried out.

“Penny was just a quivering mess, no strength in her at all. I’d caught her admiring Dad’s new scar, the one from surgery, once right after he got it, so I gave her her own.”

“I saw the report.”

“Then you know she died slowly, the feel of her guts hanging out as I touched them. Did you know that after that surgery, Dad always have phantom feelings of fingers rummaging around in his gut? Some days he just couldn’t settle for the feeling of hands, fingers, touching, pulling and moving around, like weird worms inside him.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Because you were a lousy friend!” He kicked Morgan.

“What’s your end game here?”

“My end game?”

“You have to know you’ll get caught. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Jessica was the last person to see JJ and Penny alive and she called you here. She’ll get caught, she’ll go to jail.” He sounded gleeful. “Nobody suspects me.”

==

“This has to be Jack.” Dave said through the phone to Emily. “Have you looked at the files?”

Emily chewed her lip. “There are a lot of people out there who wish us dead, Rossi.”

“But there’s aren’t many who would go to this kind of trouble.”

“Well…no.”

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

Dave sighed. “Me neither. But we need to do something. We’re up to three dead now, all that’s left are me and you.”

“We’ll get him if it’s him, Dave. We just need patience.”

==

Jessica’s hands shook as she carefully tied Emily’s wrists to the chair. “I’m so sorry.” She whispered.

Emily’s nod was almost imperceptible, her voice though was steady and strong. “Talk to me Jack. Walk me through all of this.”

“You all needed to pay for what happened to them.”

“Them?” She tipped her chin up to shake her hair away from her eyes.

“Mom, Dad, Spencer.”

“What happened to Spencer, Jack?”

The young man flinched and pointed at nothing with the knife. “Spencer would stay with us, but he had dreams. I remember he had nightmares about things and some nights my dad would sit with him in the dark and talk.”

“What did they talk about?”

Jack stepped her direction. “Spence would tell Dad about feeling alone, about how it felt to be tied to a chair for two days without ever being let up. He talked about knowing he was going to die, accepting it. Does it make him weaker than everyone else that he didn’t beg for his own life?”

“No.”

Her answer surprised him. “No?”

Emily met his eyes, they were lighter in color but had that same familiarity. “I remember it like it was yesterday, Jack, none of us ever forgot. We didn’t need the curse of an eidetic memory for that. Spencer was anything but weak.”

“I found the shed.”

“You…” That startled her. In all her years of work, she’d never considered the impact of those places marred by horrors and how their impact would affect the future. “You found it?”

“I went there. No one missed me! The rest of the world forgot about it, the little shed with the busted door and stains on the floor.” He shook the knife. “I touched that broken door, something my father touched. Until then I never really knew just what he must’ve been capable of.”

“We all moved on, Jack.” She could see Jessica cowering in the corner and wondered just what Jack had done to make her so compliant. “It was horrible and we all suffered in Georgia.”

“No!” He bellowed, slapping her across the face. “You watched him suffer.”

“We rescued him.”

“He rescued himself!”

Emily refused to flinch. “Okay, you’re right, he shot Hankel, he’d saved himself by the time we found him.” When Jack paused, she smiled internally. “See, I remember. The man who tried to kill Spencer was named Tobias Hankel. I’ll never forget that name, none of us did.”

“That monster got him addicted to drugs.”

“And that’s why you gave Morgan the same drugs? Because Spencer was his friend, and he did nothing. He could have saved Spencer, we all could have, but we did nothing.” She kept her gaze open. “So, we had to pay for it.” She kept going, carefully. “You shot JJ in the head with a revolver because Spencer had a revolver held to him, Russian Roulette. He only lived because he sacrificed your father.”

“He had a moment of weakness.”

“He knew the odds, Jack. He knew we were watching him. He knew he wasn’t alone.”

Jack paced for what felt like an hour, the room silent except for the small meep from Jessica any time he got close to her. Eventually, as the sun was setting, he returned to Emily. “No one saved my mother. You all knew that monster was out there, you knew what he was capable of and he got ahold of Dad and then you let him get her, kill her.”

Emily thought quickly. “What happened to Aaron was horrible beyond anything we ever could imagine.”

He grinned darkly. “Did you see my handiwork on JJ?”

“You took your time with her. You wanted her to suffer. The cuts were repetitive, deeper each time, and you did it with her awake.”

“She kept passing out, I had to wait and wake her up over and over again.”

“Persistence. You got that from your dad.”

“Don’t talk about him!” He roared, lashing out and hitting her so hard the chair toppled over. “You have no right!”

“I loved him!” Her declaration stopped him in his tracks.

“What.”

“I loved all of them. They were my family. My father died when I was still in school, my mother was rarely around, and I have no siblings. The team, they were my family, the people I went to the ends of the earth to protect. The people I died to protect.”

A stillness overtook the room for several minutes before Jack righted the chair. “You died to protect them?”

Her eyes widened at that. Surely… “You didn’t know?” She watched him shake his head. “A man was after me, much like Foyet stalked your dad, threatening my family. Only, my family was the team, was you. So, I vanished, I took the fight to him and he killed me.” She drew a breath. “Your dad made sure my death was believed and got me shipped overseas to keep all of you safe. I had to die to protect you.”

Jack just stared at her.

“Scratch tried to kill me to get to you and your father as well. And I was ready to let him.”

“You died for me?”

“I died for all of my family.”

His empty hand curled into a fist and flexed open, a tic she remembered of Aaron’s when he was debating. Without saying another word, Jack grabbed Jessica by the arm and dragged her out, slamming the door closed.

Emily was left in the growing darkness wondering just how much time she’d bought herself.

==

Jack hadn’t slept. Instead, he’d stayed up all night wondering what else he never knew. Kicking Jessica awake, he asked her. “Did you know about all that?”

She stared up at him with tears in her eyes. “Yes. I knew she’d died and Aaron told me the whole story after.”

He paced. “No one ever told me.”

“You were just a little boy, Jack. We all tried to protect you.”

“That worked well, didn’t it?”

“I don’t understand where it all went wrong.”

“How about when they all drove the man who was supposed to love us so far over the edge that he smeared me in my father’s blood and made me watch them both die!”

Emily startled awake at the sound of shouting in the next room. Blinking, she realized the sun was rising, she’d managed to survive the night. More shouting and the sound of something crashing before she could hear Jess crying. “Jack!” She called out, hoping to draw his attention. She’d seen the crime scene photos and could work out what each person was punished for. When the younger man appeared, she had to ask. “Why did you cut Penelope like you did? I mean, I understand the injuries to JJ, that’s how Aaron and Spencer got hurt, and I get the drugs and the beatings that Derek got, really, I do. But, I don’t understand her.”

He thought a moment. “You weren’t there. She kept staring at his scar, they had cut him wide open and stapled him closed. I just wanted her to understand how it felt.”

Emily nodded. “I know, Jack. I get it. We all let them get hurt over and over and they suffered so much for it. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that we didn’t realize Spencer was struggling after he got out of prison and Jack, I swear to you, I’m sorry he hurt your dad. Once upon a time they loved one another so much but I think there were just too many things, too much pain, and Spencer just reached the end of his rope.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve reached the end of mine.” He left the room, bringing Jessica in a minute later. “I have some things to get ready, for now the two of you are going to just stay right here.” Grabbing extra rope, he bound his aunt’s hands and feet behind her back and left her on the floor before locking them in the room and leaving.

The pair remained silent until they were sure he was gone. “I’m so sorry I didn’t stop him.” Jessica spoke. “I didn’t know what he’d done until after JJ and then… I didn’t want to die too.”

Emily craned her neck to see her. “He made you watch?”

“I’d called JJ for the lunch, he used that to lure her away. Then he said he would kill me if I didn’t call the others.” Her voice cracked.

“Dave knows.”

“I know.”

Emily tried to think. “What did the doctors say about his stability?”

“They never imagined he was capable of something like this. They said to expect him to always be quiet, withdrawn, but this? Who could have seen this?”

“No one ever expects something like this, Jess. We never saw it in Spencer either.”

==

Jack had spent the day wandering town, considering his next move. He’d never considered that the others had sacrificed themselves for him, that threw him, but he was committed now, he wasn’t willing to get caught. He had an idea what would become of the son of the great Aaron Hotchner in federal prison and it wasn’t a pleasant thought.

Returning to Jessica’s house, he let himself in and headed to where the two women were tied up. Not uttering a word, he strode across the room, pulling a heavy gun out of his waistband, aiming it at Emily’s chest.

The weight of the forty-five against her skin made Emily gasp. It was a gun that carried a lot of emotion- the type gun Haley was murdered with with her son in the next room, the type of gun that Aaron was threatened with. She refused to show fear, lifting her face and staring straight into Jack’s eyes. “Your father…” She started, but the sound of a gunshot echoing through the room kept her from ever ending her thought.

“My father is dead.” He said to her limp form.

==

Dave sat across from the two younger agents, tapping his pen on the table. “All the evidence adds up to Jessica Brooks, I get it. She arranged all the meetings by text, there were calls between her and the victims and proof of her at several of the scenes, but I’m telling you, this wasn’t her.”

“Sir, her handprints were all over some of these and it was clear Agent Morgan had been tortured in her home prior to finding Agent Prentiss’ body there.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Fine, bring her in. You’ll probably be saving her life, I think he’s been torturing her as well.”

One of the men frowned. “If that were the case, she would have said something. She would have come in, defended herself.”

“One day you’ll get it, but it doesn’t always work that way. She promised his parents that she would protect him and raise him like he was her own. Jessica loves Jack more than anything, she couldn’t turn him in if her life depended on it… And it probably does.”

“If we bring her in, what are you going to do?”

Dave shrugged. “I’ll go see Jack.”

==

She’d never even seen the inside of an interrogation room, it was overwhelming. Jessica huddled into the chair as she looked around at the stark walls and two-way mirror. When an agent suddenly entered, she jumped.

“Jessica Brooks, yes?”

She nodded as he sat across from her.

“I did some digging into your background, Miss Brooks, and I have to say, what I learned surprised me a bit.”

“Uhh, how so?”

“Your sister was married to an FBI agent, a member of a specialized team.”

“Yeah, Aaron was in the BAU.”

“How much did you know about what he did?”

Jessica frowned. “Before… Before my sister died, I knew he travelled around the country, they went after different types of people.”

“Like?”

She studied him a moment. “Serial killers, kidnappers, terrorists, all sorts of people.” The nod he gave made her think her answer appeased him.

“And when your sister died? Because of him?”

“She didn’t die because of him, is that what this is about? Still pinning things on Aaron even after he’s dead?” Her voice rose. “What happened to my sister was a lot of things, but none of them were Aaron’s fault.”

“Have you always defended him?”

Jess went silent.

“After her death, I see that you moved, school and other records show you started taking care of your nephew until he and Aaron went away.”

“I loved him like a son.”

“And Aaron?”

“Was like a brother to me.”

He gave her an odd look. “And how did it feel, having Aaron, Aaron’s job, rip Jack from you without notice. Take away your little created family.”

She tilted her head. Jessica had known Aaron nearly forty years and he had been the master of elusive, she’d honed some serious skills at reading between the lines. “You mean, did I blame the BAU for taking him away? Did I blame them for killing Aaron in the end and destroying Jack?” She leaned in now, agitated. “Let me tell you about my relationship with them. That team, they not only stepped up to help Aaron with his job and with raising Jack, they turned up unannounced when I moved, they helped me when I was sick. They were as much my family as they had been his.”

The agent flipped through the folder between them. “You are the last person to see every victim alive.” He glanced at her. “Your prints and DNA were found on the victims, at the scenes. Two of the bodies had been in your house. Care to explain that?”

Jess closed her mouth. She had no way to prove it had been Jack and if she tried to tell them, well, jail was preferable to Jack finding out.

He glanced at the mirror and then back to her. “Our consultant is under the impression that you aren’t the person we are after. Any idea who he might be suggesting is the real killer?”

She simply shook her head.

==

The knock on his apartment door made Jack pause, no one ever came to visit him here. No one but his aunt anyway. Pulling the door open just enough, he frowned. “Uncle Dave?”

Dave studied the little he could see of his friend’s son. “May I come in, Jack?”

After a beat, the younger man stepped back, letting Dave in, assessing him the whole time.

“I’m not armed, if that’s what your checking for.” He turned and really took the boy in. The resemblance made his heart hurt, this was Aaron’s son through and through. The hair and eyes were different, but everything else… “You remind me of your father.” He caught the flinch in Jack’s face. “You don’t like that?”

“Remembering him hurts too much. Reminders, seeing myself, it hurts too much.”

Dave swallowed. “Seeing yourself?”

Jack’s eyes cut to the bathroom, but he didn’t answer. “Why are you here?”

“The FBI picked up your aunt for murder. They think she killed the others, JJ and Garcia, Morgan and Emily.”

“Okay.”

He took a few steps toward the kitchen, profiling what he could see of the room. It was dim, dreary, not the kind of place a person looked forward to returning home to at the end of a day. There were no pictures up anywhere. “Did you know, I remember your mom. When I first met your dad, before you came along, they were so in love with one another.”

“Don’t talk about my mom.”

“But isn’t she what all this has been about?” He turned, strolling until the bedroom was in view. “Your dad and I, our friendship happened almost from day one. He was a keen judge of character.” He stared into the room where Jack clearly spent a lot of time. He wondered how much blood he could find in there. Maybe a murder weapon or two. “The day your mom told him she was finally pregnant… He called me out in California, it was four in the morning on the west coast, but he didn’t care, he called and told me they were having a baby.”

Jack tightened his fists. “Don’t talk about them like you cared about them.”

Dave shrugged one shoulder. “Okay. But, I did care about them, Kiddo. Your dad, there was a decade and a half between us, he could have been my son even. And I cared for him as if he were.” He watched as Jack edged closer. “The first time your dad got shot, you’ve probably never heard the story, have you?”

The question stopped Jack. “What?”

Dave, ever the storyteller, dove right in, slowly leading Jack toward the sofa. “I’d met your dad out in Seattle, on a case, but it wasn’t long before he and your mom were back in Virginia. In all his time in SWAT, he’d managed to never get shot.” He slowly sat on the coffee table, allowing Jack to sit across from him. “We were in Utah, it was hotter ‘n hell, the guy we were after had taken these little girls. Your dad, he’d always taken it personally when kids were involved, I just didn’t know yet how personal. We had the guy surrounded in the dead-end alley, he had the latest girl as a shield and we couldn’t get a shot, I never noticed your dad had vanished from the group while we tried to negotiate her release. I had my gun drawn and was easing forward, hoping beyond anything that I wasn’t about to watch that girl die.”

Jack’s brow furrowed. “What’d Dad do?”

“Well, I didn’t know but he’d found a way around the building and had scaled the wall at the end of the alley. He landed on the alley, on his feet like some damned cat, scaring the kidnapper into dropping the girl and turning on him. I had the shot and fired twice as the guy and your dad both fired as well.”

“The kidnapper shot my dad?”

Dave couldn’t help the small twitch of a smirk in the corner of his mouth as he remembered the moments that had followed. Aaron with that pissed look on his face, holding his arm as blood oozed between his fingers. The deadly glare that turned on himself later as the doctor revealed the bullet that was dug out. “It turned out it was friendly fire.”

Jack had to think a minute. “ _You_ shot him?”

Dave sighed. “I apologized, one we got back to the hotel I realized my mistake in having hit his right arm and not his left.” He saw the curious look. “He slugged me. Sent me straight to the floor, partly from surprise. But part of a bottle of scotch and a few pain killers later and he forgave me.”

“Why’d you tell me this?”

“I wanted you to understand, Kiddo, sometimes the people who love us, they hurt us. They don’t mean to and they’re sorry, but you have to see it and forgive them.” The room was totally silent, and Dave wondered if Jack was considering his words. He glanced down at his hands, drawing a breath to continue when a great force slammed into his chest, knocking the wind right back out of him as he and the weight tumbled over the table he’d been sitting on and onto the hard floor the other side. Blinking to clear his vision, Dave stared up and into the very angry gaze of Jack. Strong hands wrapped around his throat.

“I could kill you right now.” He squeezed. “I could wipe you out right here. You shot my father! You stood by as my mother died! You did nothing, and my Dad and Spencer risked their lives over and over again!” Jack pulled up and slammed Dave’s head into the floor. “You let him die! You shot Spencer! You ruined my life!”

Dave did his best to fight back, but he couldn’t breathe, dots danced in his vision. Jack was still screaming as he passed out.

==

Dave came to feeling heavy. It took him a long while to work out that he was shirtless and that there were track marks on his arm.

“Now you look like Spence did.” Jack’s voice came from out of view.

“Why?”

“Don’t think you’re getting out of here, I mixed those drugs with something…suggestive… You can’t get up, you’re trapped here.”

He struggled but the boy was right, he was stuck on the floor.

“In the end, when we moved away.” Jack finally knelt in view, a syringe in hand. “Dad would make sure I locked him in his bedroom at night. He had nightmares about murdering me.” He pointed the needle in the older man’s face. “You know how fucked up that is? Knowing your own dad dreams of murdering you?”

“No.”

Grabbing Dave’s arm, Jack pushed in. “You’ll stay awake this time, just… in a delusion. I can’t help what it is you see.”

==

When Dave came around again, he could tell time had passed, the light from the windows was gone, his body damp and chilled. He was alone. “Jack? Jack!” He called several times to no response. His legs were tied, his hands tied behind his neck. He couldn’t get up to investigate anything.

His stomach rumbled. “Dammit Kid, where’d you go?”

Nothing, not a single response. Dave kept himself awake for hours, determined to be awake when Jack returned, but eventually his body simply gave in.

==

“Shit!” He hissed, his eyes not even open yet. Being sliced up with a knife was a horrible way to wake up. Peeling his eyes open, Dave could see it was morning, though he wasn’t sure how late.

“I have more treats for you, but not yet.” Jack curled his nose. “Did you have to stink up the place?”

“Didn’t have much choice now, did I?” Another swift cut had him swearing in two languages. “Jack! Shit! Stop!”

“No.” Another cut.

“Why?! Why are you doing this?”

“It feels good.” He rubbed his fingers in Dave’s wounds and then wiped them on his face. “The last touch I ever received from my dad was his blood wiped on my skin.”

Dave shivered, and this time not from the cold. “I know.”

“I didn’t want to shower after. The hospital had to sedate me to wash him off. I wanted to stay covered in his blood forever.”

“I understand that.”

“Do you?”

Dave nodded. “I miss him every day too.” He gasped, a sharp pain shot down his arm, his chest was tight, he couldn’t catch a breath. “Jack, stop!”

“I- I didn’t do anything.”

Dave looked up to see the sudden look of confusion on the boy’s face. Checking, sure enough, there wasn’t a cut on his arm where the pain was getting worse. “Jack…”

Jack shook his head. “You’re just screwing with me, to get me to set you free. I’m not doing it.”

“No…” He slowly shook his head. “I swear to you. I’m… We always hate to admit it, but I’m not as young as I used to be.” He gasped. The pain was excruciating. “Please, Jack.”

Watching in silence for several minutes, Jack eventually left the room and returned with a syringe, pushing the drugs into Dave’s arm. “Maybe when you wake up, you’ll be more reasonable.”

==

The day wore on as Jack waited for the old man to wake up. In the silence, he really looked at his Uncle Dave for the first time in years. His dark hair had gone white, his skin sagged more. Jack had to think a minute, the man had said he’d been something like fifteen years older than his dad…so he had to be in his mid-seventies now.

As evening returned, Jack finally gave in and crossed the room, leaning in close to see if he was waking up. Not seeing anything yet, he grabbed the man’s wrist and checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

He tried Dave’s neck like Jessica had taught him.

Nothing again.

Landing on his ass on the floor, Jack stared. This had been his dad’s best friend, the man that had been at times a surrogate father to him and surrogate grandfather to himself. “Dave?” He tried, softly. Tears filled his eyes. “Daddy, what did I do?” Unsure what to do next, he curled up on the floor and cried properly for the first time in years.

==

Morning light through the windows woke Jack next. He pushed up, slowly remembering that he’d slept beside the corpse of Dave the whole night through.

As he showered, he worked out a plan. He’d had fake ID’s made some time ago for when he’d finished his plan and, technically, the plan was complete. Packing a bag, Jack Hotchner later boarded a flight headed first to Germany and then to parts unknown from there. He had no plans to ever return to the states, he would remain a ghost forever. And hopefully his own ghosts wouldn’t follow him.

It wasn’t like there was anyone left to care anyway. They’d all died and left him to suffer alone. And Jess. Jess would go to the ends of the earth to protect him, she’d promised.

Because who better to wipe out an entire team of FBI agents and get away with it than someone who’d been raised by and had learned from those same agents.


End file.
